Nick, Ava, Emily, and Luke seem to have moved on with their lives, but, emotionally, they’re still stuck on the tragic death of their best friend Jason. All they know is that he was on his way to a haunted house called Everly Manor when the car accident occurred. When an opportunity strikes to investigate the manor and get closure, things immediately go awry: delayed mirror reflections, echoes of footsteps that aren’t theirs, writings on the wall that spell out inner thoughts. It comes to a head when they find a sand-filled orb (The Anchor) that can track time and change it. When it thrusts them back to three days before Jason’s accident, they seize this second chance to save their friend. But the Anchor continues to track their looming deadline, and a masked specter lurks in every corner—a sobering reminder of what reality awaits them if they don’t succeed.

This is the premise of Justin R. Pilar’s ECHOES IN EVERLY MANOR, a story that careens toward an ending that will seemingly decide Jason’s fate but whose bulk lies in the journey leading up to it. Can something truly be prevented through time travel, or does the existence of it in history make it inevitable? It’s a thought-provoking question the characters try to answer as they work within the limits of time manipulation.

Their anxiety in those three days spills onto the page, breaking into tense disagreements about when to intervene. They go back and forth between feeling desperate to tell Jason about the future and trying to logically work within the patterns that led to his death while not damaging their own timelines. “We stick to shadows. We only move when we all agree,” Nick constantly has to remind them. And stick to shadows they do, even if it means walking into a house that preys on their insecurities. “We’re not letting this place tell us who we are,” Nick tells them until he’s stopped cold by a voice that sounds like Ava: “except Ava hasn’t opened her mouth.”

Pilar’s style of third person omniscient writing heightens the eerie atmosphere, as readers see each character’s reaction to the house. The narration tends to become overly descriptive and gets caught in the minute details, perhaps to help readers catalogue the subtle disturbances in the air. But the constant mentions of floor creaks, rain, and echoes slow down the pacing.

More character and plot development could have drawn out the stakes more while offering clarity behind Jason’s death, his internal struggles, and his connection to Everly Manor. Losing him weighs heavily on his friends, but there isn’t enough context about how his death shaped them and what their dynamic was like with him in the group. Even so, their laser-focused attempts to save him and constant volley between cautious optimism and despair speak volumes about the depth of their love.

Beneath the creepy sounds and changing gravity is a gut-wrenching story about how grief can become a form of haunting, further manifested into a haunted house. Though the group’s trip through time feels like a deus ex machina trope, it enhances the emotional components of the story and reminds readers that there’s more to horror than jumpscares.

Justin R. Pilar powerfully subverts horror and crafts a haunting novel in ECHOES IN EVERLY MANOR. The story builds into a crescendo of emotion that palpably captures the depth of grief.

~ K. Nesa for IndieReader